2021 Calendar

Good Monday morning everyone. There is no card on today’s post, so if you are looking for that you can stop reading right now.

Instead, I bring you another of my paper creations. Well, sort of. I made the photographic images and put together a calendar, then sent it off to the printer. I guess that qualifies as my creation, even if I don’t do my own printing.

Here is an image of the cover

The calendar is 12″ x 12″ with 13 different images. There are fun facts about woodpeckers also. I had so much fun taking these images and as much as I love photography, I also love putting those images together for a practical purpose.

I know, you can get free calendars anywhere, so why would you want to buy one? I would hope that it would be that you like my images, and want a few for yourself. There is no pressure to buy, I just want to let you know that they are available.

These top quality, spiral bound calendars will be ready on November 8, plenty of time to get them as gifts or for yourself. The cost is just $20 each with special pricing if you purchase 3 or more. Shipping is $5.

Here is an image of the back, showing all the woodpeckers included.

Yesterday I went birding with a friend and we found 43 different species, including 4 of the ones on this calendar. However, those particular individuals are not on this calendar! 

Iowa has 7 of the woodpecker family. They are: Pileated, Red-headed, Red-bellied, Downey, and Hairy Woodpeckers, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Northern Flicker (yellow-shafted). All are present on this calendar. The others are from Canada, Minnesota, and Arizona. I have a few other woodpecker images, but there are only 12 months in a year.

Although, I guess I could have made an 18 month calendar. Maybe next time, since I didn’t even think of that for 2021.

In addition to the photography and making the calendar, I have been busy of late doing quite a bit of canning. One of my daughters and her husband grow and weed the garden, and pick the produce. I do the canning. They freeze some of it, but I process the bulk of the vegetables. I froze peaches and strawberries this year too, and made peach and strawberry jam. The jars look like jewels on the shelf. I enjoy doing that and do not like to weed and pick. This arrangement works well for all concerned.

We didn’t need corn this year, but did need green beans, tomatoes and beets. I have another daughter and 3 granddaughters who also share in the canned goods, so it takes quite a bit produce for canning. We are at the end of the garden now, but when I finish with the last picking of tomatoes and green beans, there will still be pears to can.

A friend has a pear tree and they couldn’t use all the pears. As is the norm in Iowa, people give away most of their excess, so I was the fortunate recipient of 10 buckets of pears. My son-in-law and John, the tree owner, picked them, while I sorted through the ones that had fallen. That’s a lot of peeling folks!

This year the problem was jars and lids. Due to the Covid19 Pandemic early this spring, more people grew gardens and, perhaps for the first time ever, did some canning. The result has been a severe shortage of jars and lids.

I have always saved my jars (I have been canning since the 60s) but the lids are not re-usable. I usually have a few leftover from the previous year, but never enough for all the canning. It has been a struggle to have enough to do all that I wanted (needed) to do, but over the summer we have managed to scrounge up enough so far.

Here are a few of the items I have canned.

Left to right, front Beet Pickles, Tomato Sauce, Dilled Beans. Back Row: Soup vegetables, Lime Water Pickles and Vegetable Stock. I also canned sweet pickle relish, salsa, tomatoes and green peppers, green beans, beets and whole tomatoes.

The Soup veggies got their start in the 60s when, at the close of the growing season, I just threw everything left in the garden into the jars and called it “end of the garden soup”.

I grew everything back in those days, and now my daughter sometimes does. Sometimes I end up purchasing one or more of the veggies to add to the mix. Most of this years’ 40 quarts contain green beans, tomatoes, cabbage, onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes. Everyone in the family loves this as it makes a quick meal as is, or with the vegetable stock,chicken or beef broth added along with your choice (or not) of meat. Sometimes I add hamburger or stew meat, sometimes chicken or turkey, sometimes sausage or ham. It makes a really quick meal and is SO good on a cold winter day!

To go along with all the canned goods, the zucchini and yellow squash were prolific this year (aren’t they always?), so I made many, many loaves of zucchini bread and froze it. All of it will be so welcome this winter.

I know this is not my usual post, but sometimes change is a good thing. I hope you all have a great Monday. If you are interested in a calendar, please comment or private message me.

Thanks for stopping by!